A 58-year-old man has died after a herd of stray elephants destroyed his four acres of maize crop in Nwoya District.
The deceased has been identified as Bosco Ojara, resident of Pakawera Village in Langele Parish, Lii Sub-county.
According to the deceased’s wife, a one Ms Aunu, her husband Ojara died immediately after seeing a herd of 16 stray elephants destroy his maize crop after efforts to drive them away failed to yield anything.
“Ojara died shortly after he attempted to chase the elephants out of the garden but could not go,” Ms Aunu told Kazi-njema News.
Mr John Bosco Okullo, the Koch Goma Sub-county LC 3 Chairman who is also a farmer in the area explained to this website that on seeing the many elephants destroy his maize crop, Ojara collapsed and died immediately.
He suspected that Ojara could have died from shock he developed after seeing the herbivores destroy his crop.
“Ojara could have died as a result of shock since he did not have any history of ill-health before. Immediately after seeing a big herd of elephants destroy his crops, he collapsed and in 30 minutes, he had already died. There was no any sign of injury on his body and we strongly believe it was just fear which cost his life,” the politician said.
Mr Okullo added that on seeing the massive destruction the elephants subjected on his maize crop, Ojara’s children told their father to get back inside the house.
However, he collapsed and passed on before getting back into the house. The LC 3 chairman said that night the elephants destroyed 30 acres of crops in the area.
When contacted, Mr Wilson Kagoro, the community conservation warden for Murchison Falls National Game Park said he had not yet received the information by press time.
However, Mr Kagoro said there are rangers at Adibuk Outpost in the area who work with the local community to help drive the stray elephants back into the game park.
“As an entity, we have identified a group of community scouts, equipped them with tools to help us in driving the elephants back into Murchison Falls National Game Park,” Mr Kagoro told our reporter.
It is not uncommon for elephants to stray from Murchison Falls National Game Park, posing a major threat to people surrounding it.
This has continued to occur since 2007 when the community started resettling to their homes from the former internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.
